Rose wakes with a severe hangover and mounting horror. Fragmentary memories assault her. Using first-aid training, she checks Matt’s vital signs, rolls him into recovery position, dresses him, drags him to the Land Rover, and drives to the hospital.

Lorna furiously berates Rose, calling her irresponsible. Matt remembers nothing of his visit home. Dr. Fairchild reports the incident has set his recovery back by weeks or months. When Rose tries to explain that Matt initiated the drinking, Lorna refuses to hear it.

Crushed by guilt, Rose recalls that there was no force, only a confused and clumsy act. Unlike her refusal to take responsibility for anything as a child, she convinces herself that everything—the crash, Matt’s injury, and this encounter—is her fault.

Work follows the seasonal rhythm at Meredith Downs despite the loss of the MacBride men. Only two outcamps remain, so Lorna reviews job applications for new station hands. She also notices that Rose has been distracted lately. Rose avoids Matt and stops visiting the hospital. Her only comfort is Miles.

In late April, Miles teaches Rose croquet. As he corrects her stance, Rose has romantic daydreams, causing her to feel like there are two distinct parts of herself. After she wins, she cries, telling him he would reject her if he knew what she had been through. Miles gives her a brief, comforting kiss, but when she returns the kiss, he pulls away, apologizing and explaining he is not the right sort of man for her. He suggests her emotions have left her vulnerable and leaves abruptly.

Two days after her rejection by Miles, Rose argues with Lorna about starting the secretarial course in Perth. When Lorna asks her to wait until Matt returns, Rose explodes in anger and runs off. That night, she retrieves the course forms from Phil’s desk, and the following morning, Rose intercepts Sneaky Snook and gets a ride to town, visiting the bank and train station. Lorna discovers Rose’s note saying she has gone to Perth. Rather than force her back, Lorna waits.

Two days later, Rose telegrams from Perth. Two weeks later, a postcard says she is traveling around Western Australia instead of taking the course. A letter then arrives from the secretarial college thanking Phil for requesting a fee refund, with a check issued to Rose and a form bearing Phil’s signature—dated months after his death. Lorna realizes Rose forged her dead father’s name, a desecration that hardens her heart.

Using an alias, Rose interviews for a bookkeeping position at a Port Grace meatworks and is hired by Ernestine Bobanac. The overwhelming stench causes Rose to vomit during the tour. She finds safety in the predictable routine of bookkeeping and reads extensively at night, falling into dreamless sleep. After a month, Ernestine gives her a raise and a new adding machine, seeing herself in Rose.

At Meredith Downs, Miles helps with Matt’s recovery, and they form a friendship while restoring the old pearling lugger. Matt confesses his memory struggles, explaining he feels “as if I’m not really a person—I’m just a story, that someone else has to tell me” (114). Miles reveals his own family has invented a story about him too. Matt admits he does not know if he has ever kissed a girl but has a fleeting memory of lamplight and rain.

In early August, Lorna receives a card from Rose with a check repaying half the course fees. Four months into her job, Rose faints at work. Ernestine lends her wedding ring so the doctor will treat her respectfully. There, Rose learns she is about five months pregnant. She asks about termination, but the doctor dismisses abortion as a crime. Outside, Ernestine promises Rose her job and accommodation for as long as needed.

In late November, Miles announces he is leaving, as Matt has recovered enough to take over. He leaves his croquet set as a gift. Inside the box, Matt finds a card from someone named Sandy, addressed to Miles. A week before Christmas, Rose goes into labor. The Flying Doctor who arrives is Finbar Rafferty, and he recognizes her.

Just after Christmas, Rose returns to Meredith Downs with Dr. Rafferty and her newborn son. She is haggard and frail, recoiling when Matt greets her. Lorna gives the baby to Matt to hold. Rose sits in the lounge room, the ticking of Old Wally feeling reproachful. She wishes she did not return.

Matt holds the baby, inspecting the tiny creature who has further torn his family apart. The infant opens his eyes and fixes Matt with an intense look. Matt asks if the baby has a name; Rose replies only with the surname MacBride. She has refused to identify the father.

Before Rose’s arrival, Fin Rafferty had sent a cryptic telegram prompting Lorna to phone him. She learned Rose’s situation and was urged to take her in while deciding the child’s future. Wracked with shame, Lorna searches the station diary from nine months earlier for clues about the father. She notices many entries by and about Miles.

An image of the Annunciation enters Lorna’s mind. That night, she looks up the Gospel passage and is struck that the Virgin Mary never revealed the father’s identity, not even to Joseph. This softens Lorna’s heart toward Rose.

The baby is another disruption in Matt’s disordered world. Rose is detached and businesslike with the infant, while Lorna and Matt provide affection. The subject of the baby’s father remains forbidden. Lorna plans to have the child adopted.

Matt notices Rose watching him with a wary, guarded expression. One afternoon, Rose asks how he can remember manual tasks but not events. Matt explains motor memory as Dr. Fairchild taught him. Sensing her distress, he offers to confront anyone who forced her into sex, implying rape. Rose does not reply.

That night, Rose sits on the verandah, feeling safe for the first time because she believes Matt’s memory of the encounter is permanently lost. She sees a distant light from Pete Peachey’s camp and feels comforted. She takes out her old brass lighter, a familiar, soothing object.

Mrs. Blencombe from the Anglican Society for the Australian Family visits to arrange the adoption. She explains that while confidentiality is strict, adopted children have tracked down their birth parents. This alarms Rose, whose name must appear on the birth certificate; however, the father’s name can be omitted.

A week after returning, Rose writes a confession stating it is all her fault and that Matt is the father. She retrieves her brass lighter, preparing her ritual, whispering “yawa” three times to make the truth disappear. The baby suddenly screams—a wasp has stung him. Lorna rushes in, snatches the baby, and her look wordlessly accuses Rose of incompetence, breaking the spell of the ritual.

Later, Rose and Matt sit on the back verandah while he repaints an old cot. Matt mentions Dr. Fairchild’s theory that the brain erases traumatic memories and tells Rose about a recurring dream of heavy rain on a tin roof with a girl present. Rose’s cup jolts in her hand. When Matt asks if he had a girlfriend before the crash, Rose tells him he was going to meet Pattie Gosden on the day of the crash. Matt asks if Pattie is the girl in his dream, and Rose abruptly goes inside.

Standing over the sleeping baby, Rose realizes that even if adopted, he will grow into a man who could hunt her down. She considers smothering him but recognizes this would only trap her further. She needs a surer solution.

Rose drives to Pete Peachey’s camp with the screaming baby. Pete takes the infant and expertly soothes him. Rose asks if killing is ever right. Pete talks about dispatching kangaroos quickly and cleanly, hints at his own difficult past, and tells her she needs sleep and time—the secret to enduring anything. Rose asks if she can leave the baby with him. Pete gently refuses and drives them home.

Rose concludes she must apply her father’s principle of euthanizing suffering animals to herself and her son, whom she believes is cursed. On the evening of January 9, she makes dinner and appears calmer. Lorna suggests celebrating their missed birthdays once the adoption is finalized. Rose gives Matt a warm, radiant smile and says a fond goodnight.

At midnight, Rose stands before Old Wally with the baby. She walks through the house whispering the names of rooms to the infant. Then, she takes the car keys, quiets the dogs, and leaves. Under the stars, she whispers a prayer asking God to undo the day of the crash. She drives away slowly, the homestead disappearing into darkness.

Before dawn on January 10, Pete Peachey discovers Lorna’s station wagon with an empty bassinet near Proserpine Mine. Recalling his own suicidal thoughts at the mine after the war, he sprints to the shaft and sees Rose’s body at the bottom. He climbs down and finds Rose dead, her face smashed against rock. Her bright pajamas are vivid against the jagged granite. Nearby, the baby has been thrown clear onto leaves, with only a small cut, still warm and with a heartbeat. Pete cradles him and climbs out.

Dr. Rafferty flies out to examine the baby. Sergeant Wisheart investigates and, believing justice would not be served by further punishing the family, officially records Rose’s death as an accidental fall rather than suicide.

At the funeral, serving as a pallbearer, Matt feels all the family’s tragedies were fated. Later, Pattie Gosden approaches him. He has vague memories of her but feels nothing romantic. She reveals she was in Perth during the Young Pastoralists’ meeting. Then, he asks if he ever hurt her; she says he only broke her heart. He realizes she is not the girl from his rain dream.

Late on the night of the funeral, Lorna records Rose’s death in the station diary. Seeing Rose’s handwriting in past entries stabs her with pain. She looks in on the sleeping baby, reminded of a carol about the mystery of a child lying in a crib.

As telegrams postpone the adoption visits, Lorna becomes attached to the baby. After briefly consulting Matt, she decides to keep the child. She travels to Perth and, on the same day, registers Rose’s death and her grandson’s birth, naming him Andrew Ross MacBride and leaving the father’s name blank.

Lorna then writes to Miles Beaumont, informing him of Rose’s death and the birth of her son, whom she describes as resembling her MacBride babies, and inviting him to visit and meet the boy.

The district speculates about the baby’s father, with Miles Beaumont the leading suspect. Lorna defies the gossip by taking baby Andrew into Wanderrie Creek and publicly purchasing baby supplies.

While Lorna is in town, Matt begins converting Rose’s room into a nursery. Removing the mattress, he finds Rose’s brass lighter and a folded paper with the words yawa, yawa, yawa. He unfolds it and reads Rose’s confession, which repeatedly states Matt is the father. The revelation shatters him; he curls up on the floor, gasping.

When Lorna returns, Matt has relapsed—disappearing for hours, returning drunk, becoming angry and rude, refusing to be near baby Andrew. Lorna has Dr. Rafferty fly in. Rafferty diagnoses depression. Matt feels trapped by responsibility to his mother but resolves to bide his time.

Matt helps Pete Peachey bait dingoes with poisoned kangaroo meat. Distracted and clumsy, haunted by thoughts of the baby and his ruined future, he spills poison on himself. Pete forces him to strip and washes him down. Back at camp, Matt breaks down, saying he would be better off dead.

Pete comforts him, sharing his experience as a prisoner of war. He explains that terrible things happen, but the trick is to keep living, existing “one breath at a time” (170) and eventually the terrible hold on him will lessen. Pete tells Matt he has responsibilities to his mother and Rose’s baby, and that if he kills himself he will be buried by his past and never see his future or how the child turns out. He urges Matt to show the boy the full moon, something Rose had loved.

In the following days, Matt finds some peace in the steadfast, unjudging landscape at Wallaby Ridge. At sunset on the ridge, he pulls out Rose’s note and burns the confession, completing the ritual Rose had started. He mouths the ritual word three times but finds the magic does not work for him as the paper turns to ash. Thinking of Pete’s words about shouldering responsibility, he resolves to survive, hoping time will help.